


An End to the Unfortunate Events

by militaryhistory



Category: A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket
Genre: Actually Providing an Ending, Bad Puns, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Diabolus ex Machina is Not Better Writing Than Deus ex Machina it's Just More Depressing, Gen, Historical References, Others Get What They Don't Have Coming, People Get What They Have Coming, Puns & Word Play
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-01-14
Packaged: 2021-02-19 02:14:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22103524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/militaryhistory/pseuds/militaryhistory
Summary: In an alliteratively named building, two shadowy men discuss and determine the past, present, and future of the schism and the Baudelaires.
Kudos: 4





	1. Chapter 1

A man who would have been instantly forgettable if you could actually see him sat in the shadows of his office, quietly smoking a pipe while considering the papers on his desk, as one does when sitting in a shadowy office. While there are many who consider smoking to be a filthy habit, he considered it to be a boon, as it had saved his life multiple times. Being willing to light fires, however small, next to one's mouth does that around a band of pyromaniacs who require convincing that one is like them.

There was a knock on the door.

"Come in, door's unlocked," he said after taking the pipe stem out of his mouth.

The man who opened the door, stepped through it, then shut it behind him, moved rather like a marionette, although he was not, and jerked his way into the best seat in front of the desk.

The pipe-smoking man considered him for a few moments, then leaned back in his armchair.

"Have you read the Count's file?" he asked calmly, looking directly into the puppet-like man's eyes.

"No," the man replied, "I haven't."

"Well, you're going to. If I had to suffer though reading that, so do you. That was one of the more miserable experiences of my life." Normally, that phrase would have meant that reading the file was as miserable as spending thirty minutes walking through the rain after a bad breakup. In this case, it meant that reading the file was as miserable as slicing your mentor and father figure's throat open after he proposed doing heinous things to the young woman the two of you had taken prisoner.

The room's temperature dropped like a bowling ball. " _Kindly_ explain to me why the Beria Protocol was not activated for him a decade ago, because I can't think of a single reason right now," he ordered, and the puppet-like man shrugged like wormwood.

"It's in his file," he said resignedly. "He was good at his job. He could make the most ridiculous disguises work, and he got the organization money. Lots of it."

The pipe-smoking man put the pipe stem back in his mouth, puffed furiously for a few seconds, took it back out, and glared at the other man.

"I knew our chiefs had no morals," he snarled, "but I expected them to have _standards._ This was utterly unacceptable. The protests regarding attempted annulments should have been seen as the excuses they were. They had the High Court, curse it!" He shook his head. "I'm glad he never got his claws into the last ones he hunted."

"We don't know about the Quagmire girl."

"Point. However, he was weird about his…activities, which is why I don't think he got to her. Speaking of the Count?"

"I came to tell you it's done," the other man replied. "We modeled the probable path of the perilous passage partly by plotting the perambulations…"

The pipe-smoking man held up a hand. "You're alliterating again."

"Sorry," the puppet-like man acknowledged, then continued. "We used the Babbage Ant Farms to find the path of the vessel Count Olaf and the Baudelaires took from the Hotel Denouemont, taking into account the currents and the storm that came through that area. We then started checking every rock and shoal within the theoretical area."

"How long did it take you?"

"Two days."

"So soon?"

The puppet-like man shrugged jerkily. "We decided that we'd try and check for visible wreckage first instead of going underwater. It was also considerably closer than we thought to shore, around twenty miles from Briny Beach."

"You mentioned that in the summary you sent, and that you'd found signs of habitation. What sorts?" the pipe-smoking man said as he leaned back in his chair.

"Well, there was what looked like an abandoned camp of sorts. The storms had hit it hard, but we decided the inhabitants left around a year and a half ago." He paused, and the pipe-smoking man spoke.

"A year and a half ago…wait a minute. Wasn't there that Medusoid Mycelium outbreak close to Briny Beach then?" He shuddered. "Horseradish and pyromania stood us in good stead those three days."

"Yes, I was just about to get to that. We found spores in an old broken diving helmet in the camp. It looked like there was a scuffle, the helmet got broken, the fungus got loose, and then the idiots left."

"Dealt with?"

"No casualties. We had horseradish. Also, we found a delightfully bitter type of apple tree on the island that contains horseradish, along with numerous saplings. We brought some back."

"Worth the trip by itself," the pipe-smoking man said with a grin. "But please, continue."

"We found two unmarked burial plots."

"Ah?"

"We exhumed them," the puppet-like man said uncomfortably, as it is generally considered a mark of grave disrespect to dig up a dead person. "The bodies were decomposed, of course, but based on clothing, identifying marks, bone structure, and the fact that we ended up with a bunch of Medusoid Mycelium spores in our faces, we concluded that they died of it, and that the they in question were Count Olaf and," he paused for a moment, "Kit Snicket."

The pipe-smoking man put his head in his hand and cursed, then looked at his friend sidewise. "This is going to kill Lemony when he finds out. First Beatrice, then Jacques, and now Kit?"

"How far away is he from the island?"

"He's currently poking around the ashes of Heimlich Hospital."

"We could…"

"No. Better to know than not, curse it." The pipe-smoking man sighed, then leaned back in the chair and cocked an eyebrow. "You refilled the graves, I trust?"

"Yes."

"Good." He paused, then smiled slightly unpleasantly. "And that does it for Olaf, too. That's some of the best news I've gotten in weeks. Maybe now we can bring this schism to an end."

"You think so?"

"With Count Olaf and Kit Snicket confirmed dead, all the lead and supporting actors in the original drama are either dead or otherwise off the board," the pipe-smoking man stated flatly. "Lemony's the last of the original volunteers who isn't indisposed in some fashion, and he's wrecking himself trying to make up for Beatrice's death by finding her children. He'll be a broken man once he finds Kit's grave. No, he's no further threat. As to the original villains," he snarled, "Olaf was the last one unaccounted for. Hardly anyone still around knows what the original schism was about!"

"We still don't know about the Quagmires or Widdershins and the _Queequeg_ ," the puppet-like man pointed out.

The pipe-smoking man shrugged. "We know that we found traces of the Great Unknown near the wreckage of the _Queequeg_ and that weird hot-air balloon mobile home. Since we haven't seen any of the people on board those since," he sighed, "And Widdershins was _not_ a hard man to notice, I think we can assume they're dead, curse it. Good people, all of them."

He shook himself, then looked at the other man. "Anyway, so what else did you find?"

"Well, remember about that apple tree? We found it in a recently abandoned storage arboretum."

"You found one? I thought they were myths."

"Well, they're not. We found a lot of useful information stuff in there, including the answers to a lot of our questions."

"Really," the pipe-smoking man said as he crossed his right leg over his left. "Where was it?"

"The Baudelaires' commonplace book."

"How did the kids get a commonplace book?"

"No, not the kids. The parents."

The pipe-smoking man's eyes widened slightly. "That's exceedingly interesting."

The puppet-like man shook his head jerkily. "It may not be that useful. They stopped writing in it around fifteen years ago. Then someone else started writing in it—Ishmael."

"Ishmael…Ishmael…wait…wasn't he the only survivor off that boat? Well," he amended, "He was, until Selma decided that we needed no witnesses. That was rough."

The puppet-like man grimaced. "She was smarter than she knew. He was a totalitarian, a busybody, a hypocrite, a hider of knowledge, and helped shove the volunteers over the edge—that night at the opera was his idea. And that's just what we got from his entries in the thing. His handwriting stops two days before the Mycelium outbreak, and the next entries indicate that it was his idea to leave the island without the horseradish apples."

"Who was left on the island to write it?"

"The Baudelaire children."

The pipe-smoking man blinked for a second, then grinned very pleasantly. "Well, so they did manage to survive the storm after all. Good to hear."

"They did set the Hotel Denoumont fire, and accidentally killed Dewey."

"Yes, they did. And your point is? No one who's still alive and effective has clean hands, and neither do a lot of the ineffectual ones. I seem to recall that the two of us were up to our eyeballs in the Saint Bartholomew Sanction and the Katyn Catastrophe."

"Yes, but we were in our twenties when we did that. None of them are even sixteen yet."

"Which is why I sympathize. Look, you and I both know that the only reason we're not in their position is that you, I, and several of our friends realized that we were adrift when we were legal adults, which meant we could go where we willed and no one asked questions. And even then," he said heavily, "we're the only ones left from the Council of Ten."

The puppet-like man cocked his head to the side for a moment, then nodded. "I can agree with that…for now."

"Of course."

"Anyway, apparently the Baudelaires made it to the island with Olaf, then found Kit Snicket after she escaped the wreck of the _Queequeg_ , there was some kind of argument that became a schism, the Mycelium got loose, they managed to find the horseradish apples thanks to the Incredibly Deadly Viper—"

"We've still got him, right?"

"Oh yes."

"Excellent. A trained snake is a marvelous thing. My apologies for interrupting."

The puppet-like man waved a hand dismissively. "Anyway, they ran back only to find the islanders leaving with Ishmael and failed to stop them, Olaf bled to death from wounds received in the schism, Kit Snicket died shortly after delivering her baby…"

" _What?!_ "

"Kit Snicket was pregnant, and Dewey Denoumont was the father. I thought you knew."

"I most certainly did not. Who told you?"

"Frank."

"What do we have him doing?"

"Running the Bodacious Beer, Bed, and Breakfast over near Superbia. We're using it to keep tabs on Tarquin de Moff."

"Keep him there. My apologies for interrupting intermittently."

The puppet-like man waved a hand. "None needed," he said, "that news came as a shock to me, as well."

"What did they name the child?"

"Beatrice."

The pipe-smoking man smiled sadly. "She wasn't a bad woman. Not compared to most of us." He sighed. "Maybe that'll help Lemony. I hope so. But, please continue."

"So, after all that happened, they buried the bodies and stayed on the island for a year, apparently read through the entire commonplace book, as well as a lot of the other information, took care of Beatrice, and repaired the boat they took to the island. They then loaded up the boat, left the commonplace book behind, and set sail."

"Anything else?"

"The boat's name was _Beatrice,_ " the puppet-like man replied.

The pipe-smoking man leaned back and thought for a moment, then sat up, got up, and walked to the door.

After opening it, he poked his head through and looked down the hall to see a young man walking along the hallway, whistling an infuriatingly cheery tune. "Peter Knight!" the pipe-smoking man accosted.

"Yes, sir!" Knight replied as he came to an abrupt halt.

"If you're not busy," the pipe-smoking man said in a tone that implied that "busy" meant "informing people of an outbreak of plague," "Please go down to the records room and pull the last year of the observation reports from Briny Beach."

"Yes, sir," Knight said, and ran back down the hall.

The pipe-smoking man went back into the room, closed the door, and went back to his chair, where he steepled his hands, ruminated a minute, then spoke.

"Every one of our bushrangers had, and has, orders to watch for the Baudelaires," he thought out loud in order to reduce the levels of social awkwardness that existed in the room. "But they were told to watch for two teenagers, the girl older than the boy, and a baby. If there were four, they probably didn't think a thing of it."

"The _Beatrice_ crashed and sank during the middle of the Briny Beach Bread Brining Blowout, and the Baudelaires are extremely recognizable, thanks to _The Daily Punctilio_ ," the puppet-like man pointed out. "And besides, wouldn't we have noticed something in the observation reports and news stories?"

The pipe-smoking man shook his head. "Remember, Briny Beach is one of the biggest consumers of that rag. Someone might have noticed their remarkable resemblance, but then someone else would have pointed out that while there were three Baudelaires, there were four people on the boat. And that would have been the end of that. As for news stories," he shrugged, "that was at the same time as we were implementing William Joel's little plan. The reporters were busy. As to observation reports, you know I've been relying on summaries for almost a year now. I don't have time to read them all."

"Neither do I," the puppet-like man said, then grinned. "Did you think, when we formed the Council of Ten, that we'd ever be in this position?"

Before the pipe-smoking man could answer, there was a knock on the door, and a voice saying, "Briny Beach observation reports, sir."

"Coming," the pipe-smoking man said as he walked to the door. He opened it, took the box from Peter's hands, nodded, and said, "Thank you. Have fun tonight."

"Thank you sir," Peter said with a smile that said he was already thinking of his evening out on the town. The pipe-smoking man chuckled and waved him on, then closed the door with his foot, put the box on his desk, and began to ruffle through it.

"Aha, here's the date," he said after a few minutes of searching as he pulled out the papers held together by beeswax. "Now let's see—she went to the Bread Brining Blowout, then a boat named _Beatrice_ crashed and…yes, here it is. Four children, the oldest a girl in her mid-teens, a young teenage boy, a toddler girl, and a baby. They all survived, took their things from the boat, dried them on the rocks, took some bread, and left Briny Beach at the end of the day."

He grinned boyishly. "Ha-ha! Yes! Finally, some good news." He paused. "All right, old friend, there's some decisions to be made, and I've got a flash of inspiration coming on, so settle me down if I get too weird, okay?"

The puppet-like man grinned. "Can do, boss."

"Good. First, we get the word out to all the bushrangers. Give them the description contained in this report, remind them that there could be two toddlers by now, and tell them not to spook them." He paused, drumming his hands on the desk, then chuckled. "Yes, definitely don't spook them, but keep watch all the same. We don't need addresses, just cities—for now. Also send orders that, once found, if attacked they are to be aided without caveat."

The puppet-like man quirked an eyebrow. "Are you sure about that last?"

The pipe-smoking man thought a moment and nodded. "Yes. We owe them, and we owe them big. That fire at the Hotel Denoumont allowed us to initiate the Emetic and Diuretic Contingencies, and in a way that allowed us to keep most of _our_ organization intact and bring in most of the surviving volunteers while ridding ourselves of the villains. Also, it was Hathorne who took Poe's position, yes?"

The puppet-like man growled. "Yes. Little pretentious snot, just like his predecessor."

"Put Coldprice on him. Inform him that _when_ the Baudelaires come to claim their fortune, he will give them no trouble beyond the bare minimum necessary, or some of the more embarrassing parts of his diary will be made public."

He thought again, tapped his chin, and chuckled. "Also, let's get Squalor working on that book again. He should at least have his notes. That'll clear the way for getting Strauss on the High Court."

"Are you mad? Strauss may be a kind woman, but she's obsessed with legalities. And the High Court is currently in flux"—which means here that every position on the court had, in the year and a half since the fire, been held by three or more people, none of whom had left voluntarily or alive—"and I thought you thought well of her."

"I do," the pipe-smoking man said, "But by the time Squalor manages to rewrite his book and we get it to Samizdat Press, most of the wolves should be dead, and we can bring down the rest. And any legal case against the Baudelaires has so many undotted i's and uncrossed t's that any judge who cared about such things would throw it out in a trice."

He puffed furiously on his pipe for three seconds, then spoke again. "Then, once that's done, they should be in a position to claim their fortune without let or hindrance." He paused, ruminated, nodded. "Then we make the recruitment offer, when they won't think we're trying to take advantage of their poverty. We could use them. I don't know how Beatrice or Sunny would be useful, but Klaus could be a great help in the archives, and Violet…she's already as good an inventor as Angus ever was, maybe better. And she's not yet sixteen. Who knows how she'll grow."

The puppet-like man clucked his tongue. "And now we come to the real reason you want to recruit them. You're sweet on the girl," he said with a slight smile.

The pipe-smoking man shot a suppressive look at his friend. "I'm twelve years older than she is," he said curtly, "and I am not reviving, even—or, in this case, especially—metaphorically, the old V.F.D. tradition of cradle-robbing."

The puppet-like man held up his hands. "Easy there," he said, "I was kidding."

The pipe-smoking man slumped slightly. "I know. I'm wound tighter than a pocketwatch."

"Why don't you go out with me and the lads tonight?" the puppet-like man asked. "The Terrific Tumbler's got some great new beer in, and the barmaids have more than their fair share of pulchritude."

The pipe-smoking man grimaced in thought. "Maybe. There's a lot to do." He sighed, patted his coat jacket, then nodded decisively and returned to business. "Also, put the neophytes on Lemony. We've got better things for the tall ones to do. And please come with me," he requested of the puppet-like man. "We'll need to deliver a sign of good faith to the Baudelaires when we approach them, and the discovery of that arboretum makes this the perfect opportunity to set that up. It's time to tie up the last loose end."

The addressee of these remarks jerked to his feet and grinned like a wolverine. "Finally," he said. "We've had him in this place too long."

"Just a moment," the pipe-smoking man said, then flipped up the cover for the Conversational Capillary that ran to the basement. "Prepare the prisoner for interrogation, and put a camera in the room, if you would."

"Right away, sir," came the reply, and the pipe-smoking man nodded.

"Thank you," he replied as he flipped the cover shut, and the two men walked out the door of the office, the pipe-smoking man pausing to put the report back in the file and pick up the box, and then again to shut and lock the door. There wasn't anything especially important in there, but it was the done thing.

After stopping by the records room to drop off the box, they continued down the hall and down the stairs to the basement in silence, the sort of silence that is held between two friends who are about to finish something they had devoted their lives to completing and had never thought they would.

They halted at the last Vernacularly Fastened Door in existence. The pipe-smoking man typed in "Dulcinea," then "Colt made them equal" and finally "Pro amici mori," and the door swung open to reveal a long hallway and a grey-bearded man with a limp.

"Is the prisoner ready?" the pipe-smoking man asked, and the limping man nodded. "Wait here, if you would," the pipe-smoking man ordered. "There will be things said that should be heard by few."

"No trouble there, sirs," the limping man said. "His mutterings keep me awake at night," he added as the other two men went down to the far end of the hall, where a door with a question mark etched into it stood.

The puppet-like man opened the door, the pipe-smoking man stepped through it, and the former shut the door behind them. There was no lock on it—none was needed.

The man with a beard, but no hair, sat shackled to a chair in the center of the room, which had as its only other furnishing a table with a camera on it. The shackling was almost cartoonish—each wrist to its respective arm of the chair as well as together, and each ankle to its respective leg and to each other.

"You two again," he sneered. "I see you still don't have the guts to actually get some of your own back, even with the cover of trying to get information out of me. You know my friends are going to break me out of here, and that you won't do what you should have done whenever you captured me and shoot me, because it wouldn't be legal. Why do you maintain this rigmarole?"

"Because of the hope that a day like this would come," the pipe-smoking man rasped as he laid his pipe on the table. "I won't be asking you any questions, except maybe rhetorically."

"Really?" the man in the chair sneered yet again. "What are you going to do then? Try and convince of the error of my ways? Convince me to repent?"

"Yes and no. I'm going to give you some information. First, Olaf is dead. Second, you are one of six survivors from the Hotel Denouemont fire."

"Six?" the man with a beard, but no hair said, his eyes widening a little in shock. "That's _all_?"

"That got you," the pipe-smoking man said, crossing his arms with an unpleasant smirk. "Yes, that's all. Well, not quite. There were four others who set the fire to cover their escape. Care to guess who?"

The man with a beard, but no hair, cursed. "Olaf, I'll bet. The little treacherous rat. And after I gave him the Snicket file. Ungrateful wretch." Then he looked up with a gleam in his eye. "That leaves three. Wait, don't tell me—the Baudelaires. Little disobedient brats. Olaf should've waited 'til they got back from Briny Beach to burn down their house."

"Yes, the Baudelaires," the pipe-smoking man replied. "And as you should have been able to figure out by now, that fire allowed the Emetic and Diuretic Contingencies to be implemented. Your friends won't be coming for you. Most of them have killed each other after discovering their mutual treacheries. But even if they hadn't, it wouldn't matter."

"Why not?"

"Because the only reason you're not dead is that you have information that we wanted about the origins of the schism and its early days, and we knew of no other source," the pipe-smoking man said as his face creased into a smile colder than the Valley of Four Drafts. "Until we found the arboretum library."

The man with a beard, but no hair, went white. "You can't have," he whispered. "We spent years hunting for that place."

"Well, we did," the pipe-smoking man said as he pulled out the revolver from his coat pocket. "Which means we don't need you anymore."

"Wait! No! I have—"

"No information that's worth keeping detritus like you out of the landfill," the pipe-smoking man snarled as he cocked the revolver. "Worst part of all this for you? If your placement practices had been a little better, we wouldn't be having this conversation."

"Placement practices? What are you talking about?"

"You remember Mark Sade, who you sent to capture Justine? He was my mentor. And remember how she somehow got loose and cut his throat? That was me, after he proposed that I join him in his interrogation. You know about his interrogations. Hadn't been for that, I'd've been one of your loyal soldiers."

"But you're a hero!" the man with a beard, but no hair said desperately. "Heroes don't shoot men who are shackled to chairs in basements! That's for men like me!"

"But I'm not a hero," the pipe-smoking man said softly. "I'm not a volunteer. I'm a man who decided that running from himself for the rest of his life sounded like too much effort." He chuckled grimly. "I'm the one element of your legacy that will survive, even once all the villains you've aided and all the evil edifices you've built have been burned away. You wanted someone who could do wetwork"—a term that here does not mean performing tasks in damp conditions, but rather soaking people's clothing in their own blood—"without flinching. You've got him." He raised the revolver until it was pointed at the center of his target's forehead. "Good-bye."

The pistol cracked as the man with a beard, but no hair, reared back in the chair, and the combined momentum of the bullet and the man conspired to put his newly-brainless body on the floor.

The pipe-smoking man looked down at the corpse as the puppet-like man picked up the camera and began taking photographs. It was over. Four years of training, five years of apprenticeship, and ten years of fighting a secret war in the belly of the beast. He looked at the revolver. It was tempting, so tempting…but then he thought of Frost.

"But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep," he murmured, put the revolver back in his pocket, raised his head, felt a great weight roll off his shoulders, and he didn't know whether to straighten in joy or sag in relief.

"I've taken about a dozen pictures," the puppet-like man said, breaking into his thoughts. "Is that enough?"

"What? Oh, yes, yes. Should be more than enough, we don't want them to think us creepy," the pipe-smoking man replied as he picked up his pipe and opened the door to, once more, reveal the limping man standing just outside it.

"I heard a shot," he replied to the pipe-smoking man's unanswered question, then craned his head around and grimaced when he saw what was lying on the floor.

"Took you long enough," he grumbled, and the pipe-smoking man smiled a little.

"Do you want us to clean it up?" he asked.

The limping man shook his head. "No thanks," he replied, "I'll do this myself. Where do you want the body?"

The pipe-smoking man thought for a minute, then shrugged. "Make sure that he goes back to dust as quick as quick."

"That won't be a problem, sir," the limping man said.

The two other men went out the door, but then the pipe-smoking man turned around. "One more thing, Ward. Once the body's disposed of, take the week off. Paid leave. I'll make the arrangements."

"Thank you sir," Ward said, giving a gap-toothed grin.

The pipe-smoking man and the puppet-like man climbed up the stairs in contemplative silence until they delivered the camera to the darkroom for picture development.

"Made up your mind?" the puppet-like man asked as they shut the door behind them.

The pipe-smoking man grinned. "Sure, why not? There's not so much to do, after all."

"Good, good," the puppet-like man said.

They strode down the hall to the doorway of the Motel Maquis, went through it after opening the doors, and the pipe-smoking man took a long whiff of the air and smiled. "Even the air seems fresher."

"I suppose it does, but I wish your references were."

"Oh?"

"Well," the puppet-like man said as they went down the steps, "Frost? Really?"

"I like Frost, thank you very much. Just because you completely misunderstand "The Road not Taken" is no cause to abandon his entire body of work."

"He's jejune," the puppet-like man said, a word here meaning that the speaker has no interest in New England.

"Frost? Jejune? This from the man who loves Flaubert."

"Flaubert is an eminent describer of the human condition."

"Flaubert," the pipe-smoking man stated as he waved his pipe for emphasis, "spends all of his time vigorously declaiming about how disgusting the middle class is, which is fine in its place but really needs some balance."

"I really think you misunderstand Flaubert. It's fairly obvious that…"

And thus did they argue—companionably, as they had not done for ten years and friends at ease will—as they walked down the sidewalk.


	2. Chapter 2

Three years, two months, and four days after finishing the schism, the pipe-smoking man sat in the far corner booth in the Restaurant Duval, although you would not have known upon first looking at him that he smoked, since the owner of the establishment abhorred tobacco. He did, however, have his pipe on the table.

He quietly drummed his fingers on the hardwood table customary to such eateries and wondered if he would leave without accomplishing his mission.

Again.

Then he saw the girl walk in, speak briefly to the maître d'hotel, which is a term used by restaurateurs who wish to seem fancy to indicate the person in charge of the waiters and seating, and walk towards his booth. When she arrived, she did not sit, but looked at him, then at the table, smiling slightly at the empty pipe.

"The smoker who is not smoking," she said. "I had wondered what that meant."

He shrugged. "It seemed fitting."

"An unpleasant habit."

He shrugged again. "As you like. It is, however, much more pleasant than following Alighieri."

Violet Baudelaire nodded, and sat down slowly. "You did issue the missive."

"Yes," the pipe-smoking man affirmed. "I am, in fact, Carl Franks," he elaborated, and was about to continue when the waiter came over.

"Would sir and madam care for today's lunch?" he asked with a trace of disdain.

The pipe-smoking man shot Violet a questioning look, and she nodded. "Yes, we would," he replied.

"And to drink?"

"A glass of Pinot Noir, if you would" the pipe-smoking man said.

"A cup of tea, please," Violet added, then, as the waiter turned to go, also said, "Separate checks, please."

The waiter turned, mildly surprised, and nodded. "Yes, madam," he said more respectfully, much to the pipe-smoking man's amusement, and left.

Violet turned to the pipe-smoking man and said, "I did not realize that the wine list outside the door contained the entirety of the menu."

"Yes, it's one of the many interesting things about this place. The food is always cooked well, however, which makes it a very fine dining experience."

Violet stilled, and said nothing until the waiter came with the wine and the tea and then went.

"You seem to be a very knowledgeable man, Mr. Franks," Violet said quietly, and then sipped her tea.

"I've fought some fires in my day."

"That's very interesting," she replied noncommittally, then, with some chill in her voice, "did they get out of control?"

"I don't know if they were out of control. I did not set them."

Violet sipped her tea again. "Let us cease to beat about the bush, Mr. Franks—" she cut herself off as the waiter came back with their food, and waited until he left before speaking again.

"I was not expecting _tassot en bisque_ ," she said, a phrase which here means that one does not expect fried dried beef and creamy seafood soup to be the entirety of one's lunch.

"You rarely expect what you get, here. Your sister would doubtless enjoy the experience. I have found that good cooks are good eaters."

Violet smiled thinly as she raised a spoonful of soup to her lips. "I imagine Sunny would," she allowed before consuming the soup as politely as one can consume soup.

The pipe-smoking man took a moment to admire the girl—no, young woman—in front of him. He'd just made plain to her that he knew enough about the Baudelaire orphans that he had to have them under observation, and she hadn't yet broken stride. Yes, she would make an _excellent_ recruit.

"However," she said, setting the spoon upon the plate that the soup bowl was resting on, "that brings me back to my question. Why have you asked me here?"

"Debt, Ms. Baudelaire."

She lifted her head. "My family owes nothing."

"Why would you think, Ms. Baudelaire, that I speak of debts that you owe?"

The expression on her face said that that had surprised her, but she rallied quickly.

"I know of nothing we are owed, either. Justice has been done."

"Nor I do not speak of that. Allow me to tell you a story, Ms. Baudelaire."

"A story?"

"A story of misfortune."

"I rather think," Violet replied sharply, "that I know more of misfortune than you, Mr. Franks."

"With all due respect, Ms. Baudelaire," the pipe-smoking man said, letting an edge of chill enter his voice, "I would request that you listen before deciding so."

He continued on, more naturally. "Once there was a young man, a few years younger than you are now. He had been taken from his home at the age of nine, in order to learn about fires and how to set them. He was taught dissension, and sabotage, and forgery, and arson, and all the required secondary skills to make those skills work to best advantage.

"When he was thirteen, he was apprenticed. First to test his knowledge of the secondary skills required for fire-setting. Observation, unobtrusiveness—he was very good at that—analysis, and disguise. This he did for two years, and he passed the tests the only way they could be passed—he lived. A few of the friends he had made in training did not.

"He was reassigned at the end of that time, and for the next two years, his superiors tested his knowledge of the primary skills of fire-setting. He followed his orders without much question, for he believed the groups he was undermining were evil or were serving evil. The night at the opera was spoken of constantly, and he was never asked to go over the line. Also, more of his friends died."

He paused. "Then came the final year of his apprenticeship, which served as the final test for fitness in the field. He was assigned to a man who was supposedly one of the best agents in the organization. Now, please bear in mind that this young man had not seen his parents more than twice in nine years, and they had been rather distant before that.

"His mentor took him under his wing, and taught him everything he needed to know and hadn't learned yet. How to drink, how to curse, how to choose…how to kill, although that was never practiced. And the young man looked on him as his father."

He paused again, then forced himself to continue. "Then, one day, his mentor told him that there was one final job to do before he could become an agent. There was an agent for the other side of the schism, and she had important information, and they needed to kidnap her and interrogate her.

"This was more important than anything he had ever been asked to do. Direct involvement in the fight, not simply manipulating cat's-paws. He did not hesitate to agree.

"The kidnapping was of little moment. A young woman walked down a street as evening turned to night, and there was an alley with two men in it carrying a sheet soaked in chloroform. It was over in a trice."

"They moved her to a small apartment in a quiet section of town. It did not take the young man long to notice that the apartment was soundproofed."

He looked levelly at Violet Baudelaire, whose composure was beginning to slip, and decided to hurry on. "And, having tied the girl to a chair so she could sleep off the chloroform, and gagged her so she wouldn't scream when she woke up, his mentor told him how he planned for them to interrogate the girl. Even now, he doesn't like to talk about how it was going to go." He shook himself, trying to ward off words that had been seared into his brain for more than a decade.

He broke out of the memory when he noticed that Violet now looked more than a little green, and then he kicked himself mentally. _She nearly got married to Olaf, you idiot, and she's probably replaying this in her head, except she's the girl in the chair._ But this part was almost over.

"The young man kept his shock hidden, and, noticing that the girl was beginning to stir, asked for a moment to go into the bathroom and get his game face on. His mentor agreed, and so he went into the bathroom, closed the door, looked into the mirror, and ran down his options. He never considered telling his mentor that he would have no part of it—that would end in his death, and he did not want to die. That left either joining, running, or fighting.

"He discarded joining first. He did not look forward to spending the rest of his life running from himself. He then seriously considered telling his mentor that he needed to get something for the interrogation, leave the apartment, and not return. Then he realized that if he did that, he would spend the rest of his life running from himself and the organization. So that was out.

"He figured he could outrun the organization. So he got his game face on, stepped out of the bathroom, walked up lightly, as he had been trained, just behind his mentor, who was too busy staring at the girl to notice anything else, pulled his knife out of his sleeve, and sliced his mentor's throat to the bone."

"That sounds horrific," Violet said softly. "What did the young man do then?"

"He thought about leaving," the pipe-smoking man said quietly, "but then he remembered the girl. His mentor had bound her well, and he didn't know if she could get out. So he stood out of sight until she fully awoke. It turned out she was very good at screaming, even through a gag, which she did for about three minutes or so. Once she was done, and appeared to have composed herself, he stepped back into sight and proceeded to explain the situation, then took the gag off."

He felt his mouth smile in spite of himself. "She cursed the young man roundly for a fool and all the other possible synonyms thereof at that point, but once she was done thanked him for having killed his mentor to save her and asked if he could please untie her so she could help him dispose of the body before they ran away to join the volunteers.

"This took the young man by surprise. He'd expected her to tell him that he could go to the devil once he let her go, not offer to take him along with her. He thought about it, but told her no, because he had work to do, and he didn't think he could do it as a volunteer. He did, however, after cutting her loose, swear an oath that he would never raise a hand to one with intent to harm.

"They then set to planning, and decided that, since he was planning on staying and she wasn't, that his cover would be established by having him leave the building at dawn. After about an hour, she would leave as well. When he returned that evening, he would find his mentor's corpse and report the fact to his chiefs.

"It was, however, just past midnight, and they were a young man and woman with nothing to do. So they talked of their lives and loves and losses, neither ever using their true name, nor anyone else's. And when the young man left, his heart was heavy, because he knew he would not see her again.

"I will not bore you with the details of what happened next. Suffice it to say that all went precisely as planned. Everyone assumed the young man's mentor had slipped up and gotten himself killed, and the young man was given agent status."

The pipe-smoking man paused for a moment to gauge her reaction. She had recovered, and even had a very slight half-smile. He continued on.

"He began putting out feelers to his former fellow apprentices. Some were pyromaniacs. Others were not. Those that were not, he brought in—or, perhaps, they brought him in, he was never quite sure which was which. Once all who they trusted were gathered—eleven all told—they met by the Rialto River, at the La Serenissima Spa"—a word which here refers to a mineral spring—"You may have heard of it, as the place can be reached only by gondola.

"They put their knowledge together, and created a Veriform Fragment Device. And they discovered that certain things they had been told were lies. Many of their dead comrades had never been where they were supposedly killed. Those who had supposedly killed them were nowhere near them when they died. Three of those had experiences similar to the young man's. So it was there, in an effort to throw off pursuit, that they misnamed themselves the Council of Ten, and decided that they could not fight this fire with water, because they did not know how. So they decided to make sure that every fire set received a backfire."

He stopped then, as he noticed Violet open her mouth as if to speak, then shut it. "What were you going to say?" he asked as he looked at her inquiringly.

Violet shrugged her shoulders and sounded somewhat shamefaced as she said, "I was going to say that fighting fire with fire didn't sound very heroic. Then I remembered the things my siblings and I did to escape from Count Olaf and his henchmen, and that sounded like a very foolish thing to say."

The pipe-smoking man shrugged. "I wouldn't blame you. Some of what they let happen…" he shook his head.

"So they set to fighting a war. They gave aid to the volunteers when they could, but more often they could only sabotage the efforts of their chiefs. Awry assassinations, embarrassed embezzlements, stopped safecrackings—they did it all."

The sound of his own voice sounded like it came from far away as he thought back to those days of hiding in plain sight. "They didn't always succeed, either. Good people died. Villains lived. And they sought solace—sometimes in each other's arms, sometimes in a bottle, sometimes in a book. It was strange what would cause the need for it—for the young man, one of the times was when he finally found out the name of the girl he had aided, because he found it in an obituary a year and a half after that event. Another time, when he had to burn down an old music store to hide the fact that his supposed cohort was dead and his supposed target alive."

He sighed. "And his fellow councilmembers began to die after that. One was purely an accident out of a bad comedy—a piano fell on his head. The others—sometimes it was self-sacrifice, like when a young woman who could play the harp exquisitely let herself be pinned in place and killed in a firefight rather than let Yankee Al's Accordion Quartet be slain for satirizing the _Daily Punctilio._ Other times, it was desperation, like when a young man with pyrophobia was chased into a fireworks factory and blew it up when his capture became inevitable. And at least once, it was love, when a young man who loved to quote Moliere and a young woman who was frightened by loud noises each repeatedly went back to save the other until they were surrounded by villains and could not retreat. And so they died together, but not before taking an escort with them.

"And this went on, and on. As their original members fell, they gathered allies and contacts, as the schism's effects became more and more apparent in the world outside of the organization. They set up new groups with those they trusted, but always there remained the Council of Ten, even when there were but two.

"And despite all their sacrifice, it was not enough. The villains and pyromaniacs expanded their reach, even as the Maquis, as they began to call themselves, expanded theirs. And so, five years ago, the last two survivors of the eleven who called themselves Ten decided, along with the leaders of former bystanders and what few volunteers they had gathered, to launch what they called the Girondist Gambit. They had received word that many of the villains, including those on the High Court, were gathering at an insecure location, and decided to launch a desperation strike, because they believed they could not move someone in covertly in time.

"They knew that even if it worked, many of them would die. The once-young man did not mind the thought much, but did not want his last old friend, or his new friends, to die.

"But, as they moved towards the location, they saw a great column of smoke rise from it, and wondered what had happened. But they pushed on, and found a catastrophe. The Hotel was gone, burned completely to ash. A few shell-shocked and smoke-smudged survivors were left, scattered about the area. And the Maquis asked who had done it, and one knew the answer, but said they had fled on a boat.

"But there was no time to find the arsonists, to repay them for what they had done. Contingencies had been prepared for such a fortuitous event, and were implemented. Treacheries were revealed by misdirected missives and purloined photographs. Control of the organization's communications was seized, and with them those elements not yet part of the Maquis were brought under its control. There was an unexpected outbreak of Medusoid Mycelium, but it was soon contained—pyromania has its uses. And the villains destroyed each other. And the Maquis began to try and find a way to repay the debt they owed."

The pipe-smoking man then pulled himself back from memory, and looked Violet Baudelaire square in the face. "As you have almost certainly guessed, the young man in this story was me. The insecure location was the Hotel Denouement. The person who told us who had burned the hotel was Justice Strauss. And the arsonists who the Maquis owe a debt to are you and your siblings."

The pipe-smoking man stopped and waited for a response.

Violet placed her hands together on the table and looked levelly at him. "If all that is so, Mr. Franks, then I retract my statement. You may very well know more of misfortune than I. However, you must know that we have been betrayed more than once, and we do not trust easily."

The pipe-smoking man let a brief smile escape him before he settled his features back into place. "I expected no less. However, consider this. There have been multiple occasions in the past few years when you have been attacked, I believe."

"Yes," Violet said curtly.

"How many times have those attacks been interfered with by outside forces?"

"Several," she said, in a tone of swiftly-dawning comprehension. The pipe-smoking man, however, said nothing as he watched the wheels turn in her head. Protecting the Baudelaires without scaring them off or tipping them off had been one of the more difficult parts of the operation, although the dividends had been more than worth it, even had the Maquis not been discharging debt. The Baudelaires had a positive talent for attracting, and badly weakening or eliminating, the sort of enemies that indicated that people were doing something right. The Thenardier Trio, The Miracle Court, Judge Javert, Simone Sartre, and almost a dozen others had learned that the three orphans and their ward were not to be underestimated. Not that they had had long to absorb the lesson.

He broke out of his reverie when Violet looked directly at him.

"We wondered why those who attacked us kept ending up broken," she said. "I suppose that was you and the Maquis?"

"Not always," the pipe-smoking man replied. "Sometimes it was not we who destroyed them, but their competitors. You left more than one would-be pyromaniac with unpayable debt in your wake."

Violet blanched slightly, but only a little, not to the pipe-smoking man's surprise. Once you'd accepted the responsibility for the casualties incurred at something like the Hotel Denouement fire, as she obviously had, you weren't going to be fazed by sharing responsibility for the endings of villainous vermin. She was also, he noted, still looking him dead in the eye, and he returned her stare and let the silence stretch until she spoke.

"How do we know that this is not some kind of elaborately-plotted revenge?"

"Well," the pipe-smoking man replied as he reached into his jacket and pulled out an envelope, "You might want to look at the contents of this, perhaps a bit later. They might be…upsetting."

"I am not a fragile flower, Mr. Franks," she said as she broke the small wax seal and lifted the flap to examine the envelope's contents. She raised both eyebrows as she shuffled the pictures of the man with a beard, but no hair after his execution.

"How long ago did you take these?" she asked.

"Shortly after we found the storage arboretum. No one wanted him around. He liked playing head games, and no one wanted a repeat of the Clara Songbird incident."

Violet winced. Apparently she'd read enough of the commonplace book to have heard of that little fiasco, a word which here means a chain of events that led to the consumption of certain types of pork, beans, and Italian wine.

"And once we had acess to the information in the storage arboretum, we had no reason to keep him around, and much reason to get rid of him. So we did. And took pictures, so we could prove that we did if we were asked. We didn't do it for trophy-taking purposes."

"That," Violet said quietly, "is a relief." Then she changed her tack. "What are you offering us?"

The pipe-smoking man grinned in his mind. "The chance for you to do what you love, but with more resources and an overall direction. Or, to put it less elegantly, a job."

Violet quirked an eyebrow. The pipe-smoking man let his grin show.

"We both know that you and your siblings put out fires wherever you go. It's like you can't help yourselves. I offer you a chance to do that and to use your talents on a broader scale. One where you can hook up to a hydrant instead of being a three-person bucket brigade. What say you?"

He stopped to let her think longer and to eat some more of his _tassot en bisque_. It was really quite good.

She spoke. "I must speak of this with my brother and sister," she said, then finished what was left of her wine and raised her hand for the check. "Some decisions cannot be made alone."

"I expected no less, Ms. Baudelaire," the pipe-smoking man replied quietly. "This offer has no time limit."

* * *

Four weeks and a day after that meal, the pipe-smoking man leaned against the railing of the Foederati Bridge, this time actually smoking his pipe as he looked over the Rialto River. He turned his head to the side and nodded as he heard Violet Baudelaire walk up to him.

"Good afternoon," he said as she went to the railing a few feet to his left and he turned back to look at the river. "An excellent use of Violently Fluttering Debris."

"Thank you."

They stood there a few minutes, looking at the river turned red by the setting sun. The pipe-smoking man puffed contentedly. He could wait.

"We have conditions," Violet said quietly.

"Name them."

"You will have access to our fortune. But we insist on clearing all requests, in writing."

"Agreed," he said, and turned to grin at her as she turned her head in surprise. "We _have_ money, Ms. Baudelaire."

"Well then," she said, a note of pleasure in her voice. "The second is that we report only to you, and anyone who we know you have given imprimatur to."

"Agreed," the pipe-smoking man replied. "Most of the work we would want you to do is the sort of work that I oversee, anyway. Any others."

"Beatrice. We want her safe. This is not the sort of life a girl of her age should live."

"We can make arrangements. We own an orphanage, a good one. Not at all austere. It…helps those with children feel less apprehensive."

"We would like to see it before we agree."

"Done. Anything else?"

"Yes," she replied, and looked him dead in the face. "You will never ask us to set a backfire, nor ask us to extinguish one that has gotten out of control. Ever. We fight fires, we do not light them."

The pipe-smoking man returned Violet Baudelaire's gaze and spoke the truth. "We will never ask you to start a fire or bail us out of one of our own making. That is not who you are."

"Then we accept."

"You speak for your siblings?"

"I do."

"Then in that case," the pipe-smoking man said as he stuck out his hand, "welcome to the Maquis." And they shook on it.

* * *

Four years and nine months after that conversation on the Foederati Bridge, the pipe-smoking man was procrastinating at his desk, a phrase which here means that he did not want to go over the stolen financial statements for the Danglars, Morcerf, and Villefort Bank, when he heard three jerky knocks on the door.

"Come in," he said, and the puppet-like man entered quickly, shut the door, and stood in front of the desk.

"Is there a reason that you're not sitting down?" the pipe-smoking man inquired.

"There's a problem at the Racine Orphanage."

"What sort of problem?"

"Beatrice Vergilia has gone missing."

The pipe-smoking man sat up immediately. "What? When?"

"Last night. She was in her bed at lights out, and then wasn't there in the morning. She left a note, a very articulate one."

The pipe-smoking man leaned forward, "Ah?"

"The note reads 'I apologize for going away, but I know you will not let me leave. But I must find the Baudelaires.'"

"Have they found her?"

"No. She's covered her tracks too well. _Very_ precocious."

The pipe-smoking man grinned. The puppet-like man quirked an eyebrow. "Is this another one of your plans?"

"No," the pipe-smoking man replied around his pipe stem, "but I think I have one."

He ruminated. "She won't try to find the Baudelaires, not to begin with."

"Why?"

"She knows them."

"Vergilia is not her real name, is it?"

"No. Her real last name is Snicket."

"Wait…" the puppet-like man's face exhibited sudden comprehension as he thought back eight years. "Kit Snicket's daughter? Who the Baudelaires took in? And who has not been seen with them for almost five years?"

"That's the one."

"That means she knows where she came from. Yes. That also means she will…look for Lemony."

"Exactly. All right, here's what I want you to do. Get them to meet each other, by any means necessary without spooking either of them."

"What's so important about these two?"

"First, it'll be good practice. We need to learn how to arrange for people to meet each other without them knowing. Second…" he sighed, "maybe I'm sentimental, but I'd like to see the last Snicket who volunteered put back together. And I think this how we'll have to do it. Are you in?"

"Of course. How do you want them to meet? Fast or slow?"

"I want Dickensian amounts of contrived coincidences."

"I can arrange that."

"Get to it. Oh, by the way, how's it going with Marie?"

The puppet-like man smiled. "I've never felt better. You know, she has this friend…"

The pipe-smoking man laughed. "Out, man. And quit trying to play matchmaker."

"Can't."

"You mean you won't."

"What is the difference, my friend? Make sure you come to the tavern tonight—the new singer's got a knockout voice."

"I'll be there," the pipe-smoking man said as his friend walked out the door and he pulled an old newspaper clipping out of his desk and stared at it for a moment. "I'll be there," he repeated softly.


	3. Epilogue

One year to the day after Beatrice Snicket left the Racine Orphanage, the pipe-smoking man stood, rifle held across his body, on the roof of the building that held the last Snickets and the Baudelaires.

This was, at the moment, the safest place there was to be. The Maquis were watching, in case this meeting should draw out villains and other unsavory types.

There had been a lot of planning that had gone into this meeting. It had taken Beatrice Snicket nearly a year to track down Lemony, as she had followed in the steps of her namesake. She'd be a good shrub when she joined. Or maybe she wouldn't join, but the pipe-smoking man found that possibility to be very unlikely.

However that went, the Maquis had been maneuvering constantly, trying to keep things appropriately difficult while making sure that Beatrice had what she needed to find her uncle, which included everything from tidbits of information found in absinthe stores to her very life. Well, from her viewpoint, she was trying to find the man who knew where the Baudelaires were. She didn't know that that man was her mother's brother. Hopefully she'd find out.

This was the worst part of any firefighting operation. Waiting to see if everyone would act in the necessary manner to put out the fire. He wanted to go down there and just throw the two of them in a room and let them talk it out, but that would not solve the real problem.

At least they had a telegraph vine running down by Snicket niece's and Snicket uncle's windows, so they'd know what was happening. So far there had just been a faint corkscrewing noise, coming from Beatrice's room, which he could only assume had been her drilling a hole in her floor. That had not taken long—it was not an expensive hotel.

Well, there had also been a thump, which he hoped was the message going through the hole and hitting the floor. That had been nearly thirty minutes ago, and he was wondering if Lemony was going to do anything. Then he heard footsteps, slow and heavy, walking away from the window.

The door opened.

The door shut.

He heard nothing for ten minutes, and began to worry that this was going to be a bust. Then he heard a knock on Beatrice's door, and heard light footsteps move slowly to answer it.

The door opened.

"Beatrice?" he heard Lemony ask, and he withdrew the vine hanging by Beatrice's window until he could only discern tone. Familial reunions should not be intruded on.

The pipe-smoking man did not hear any resultant exclamations and proclamations and enthusiasm. Neither was the sort to engage in such. He did hear the sounds of a man held together by spit and baling wire falling apart and slowly putting himself back together as he realized that his worst fears had not been realized, that someone was left alive.

There was another knock on the door. Lemony went to open it.

That one brought forth exclamations and declarations and expostulations.

The pipe-smoking man smiled, and pulled both the vines up to him. If the Baudelaires found anything important enough to tell him, they would.

As he wound the vines around, he wondered if they might all be allowed to live the kind of life that is very exciting to live, but very boring to read about. He hoped so.

He laid the vines down, sat himself on a conveniently placed box, took a bottle of Zizka lager out, and took a swig. This had been a job well done.

He felt a hand brush his shoulder, knew who it was without looking, and made a jest.

"What was in this lager?"

"In a world where the Great Unknown exists, why would you believe that this is not real?" a soft voice spoke with gentle irony.

"It's been twenty years," he said quietly. "It would've been nice if you'd called earlier."

"You know I couldn't."

"Why?"

"Well, for some of that time I was in no position to call you; then, you were in no position to be called."

"What, too focused on my work?"

"Yes."

"Beer?" he asked, passing it over.

"Zizka lager? I remember that you favored Voortrek."

"As I got older I found it left a bad aftertaste," the pipe-smoking man replied. "So, am I going to die?"

"All men die."

"Immediately?"

"Not for some time."

"What's it like?"

"Can't say."

"Of course not."

"It's not bad. I can say that. I think you'll like it. It's very peaceful," she said as she handed it back over.

"Sounds pleasant."

"So, what will you do now?"

"I don't know," the pipe-smoking man replied as he looked up at the moon and what few stars could be been through the city lights. "Keep putting out fires. Figure out who I want to lead the Maquis when I'm gone."

"I do hope that you haven't been waiting for me. Pining away for me sounds very romantic, but I hate to think of you that way."

"It wasn't just you. Like you said, I've been busy. Someone should have showed up who could have told you that I wasn't a monk."

"Well, there was one, but she didn't stay very long."

The pipe-smoking man snorted. "There was more than just one."

"That can also be a sign of waiting. I wasn't perfect, you know."

"I never got the chance to find out," he said wistfully. "I would've liked that."

Soft laughter met that remark. "You've changed so much and yet not at all," and the usually meaningless words struck him like overloaded bullets.

"I am what I always was," he said flatly. "I've just lost a lot of things."

"You've also gained a few."

"That's so," he agreed, and his eyes flicked down towards the Baudelaires and Snickets. "Like children, arguably."

"That's so." There was a pause, then, and he felt a hand push down on his shoulder as if it were being used as leverage to stand up. He put his other hand on that hand.

"Are you leaving?"

"Yes. I couldn't stay long, and I can't come back." There was a pause. "But I'll be waiting. No matter what happens."

"Thank you," he said softly, felt a pair of lips touch his forehead, and then she was gone.

 _Maybe I should get this lager checked,_ he thought, then looked out at the lights of the city that obscured the moon and the stars. _No, perhaps I shouldn't._

He thought a moment. There was still work to do. But—well, now that this was done, there would be time. Well, perhaps. There was the matter of succession. Perhaps—well, why not? Violet Baudelaire was already giving Frieda Eagle a run for her money. He nodded.

And what was the name of that friend of Marie's that Henson kept mentioning? Shannon, wasn't it? Yes. A good woman, truth be told. And Henson had just mentioned last week that she was still single. Perhaps they would only be friends. But perhaps not.

Art Lewis finished the lager, put it and the vines back into his haversack, pulled out his pipe, struck a match on the bowl, and lit it. Puffing contentedly away, he ambled towards the door of the stairway that ran down through the building and into the street.

There was finally time enough.


End file.
